Curiosity vs. Anxiety

Todd Kashdan, a professor of psychology at George Mason University, has penned a book entitled Curious?:Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life.

This is not a book review of Kashdan’s work – I promise to never use this forum for such purposes. Rather, this is an examination of the concepts Kashdan posits in his soon-to-be-published work.

Kashdan has long been an anxiety researcher, often specializing in social anxiety, and he saw a correlation in people when it came to their level of anxiety in social situations and their level of interest, or curiosity. From that, Kashdan developed his thesis that curiosity was a counter-motivation to anxiety.

That made sense to me. In the “About KnowFear” section of this blog, I note that for me, anxiety boiled down to its most base component is simply my human “fight or flight” instinct gone a bit haywire. If I may take some song lyrics completely out of context here, Clash summed things up nicely:

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know, should I stay or should I go?

The same can be said for entering into new situations or environments. There can be a great deal of discomfort associated with the unknown, and for people with anxiety, particularly socially-centered varieties, if there’s not a hook – something that tweaks your interest and makes you want to stay, explore, or learn more – it’s very easy to avoid the new circumstance. Conversely, if there’s something very appealing, or if there’s a measure of curiousity involved, it’s much easier to push aside the desire to avoid or flee.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not simply curiosity on the one hand and anxiety on the other. For me, it’s like a see-saw, or a teeter-totter as they were called where I grew up. Somewhere in the middle is a good balance, a stasis. I would be hard-pressed to find a situation in which I was heartily interested or curious that I would also express anxiety about. Alternately, if I examine situations where I typically experience dread or panic, most often they involve things that I don’t find all that interesting. Of course, that could be chicken-or-egg rationalization on my part, avoidance at many levels.

Kathryn Brittan, who writes in her Positive Psychology Reflections blog, has an in-depth interview with Kashdan if you’re interested, or curious.

Curiosity, an Engine of Well-Being